Livin' Thing

Electric Light Orchestra

The Electric Light Orchestra was unavoidable on my first portable radio. Their pop orchestrations adopted "art" from the Beatles and trashed it down to hit the charts along with Supertramp and other ilk in their wake. ELO rocked my AM radio alongside Boston, Sweet and Foghat, which remained as guilty pleasures for us eighties kids.

Still, when the Traveling Wilburys came along in the eighties, I was bewildered. Legends like Roy Orbison, George Harrison and Bob Fucking Dylan toyed with wannabes like Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne? God, I thought: those producers must've had great blow.

This song, well, it was the time, but I was pretty sure it was anti-abortion:

Making believe this is what you've conceived
From your worst day, I'm takin' a dive
Oh moving in line when you look back in time
To the first day, I'm taken I'm taken

And you and your sweet desire,
You took me ohh, higher and higher baby
It's a living thing,
It's a terrible thing to lose,
It's a given thing
What a terrible thing to lose

What did I know? It was the seventies and I was a kid. Sex was hot and it was bad.

Thanks Madeline, for the suggestion.

Jolene

The White Stripes

Training of O

Devaun

A-Punk

Vampire Weekend

Mansard Roof

Vampire Weekend

Their album is out today. Maybe you heard it here first?

Let's Make Love Listen Death From Above

CSS

Wine then bed then more then again, wine then bed then more then again.

A forced lesbian forces this in my ears. Thanks, "Pixie Girl."

Low Rider

War

Hanging low, my brothers.

If You're Into It

Flight of the Conchords

Ring of Fire

Ray Charles

I used to watch "The Johnny Cash Show" as a kid. You know that scar on Johnny's left cheek? I was sure it was a bullet wound. He was just that indestructible.

My folks also had all of Ray Charles's country albums.

You may watch this video and think, man, Ray Charles had balls. He sang "Ring of Fire" for Johnny Cash's audience? Hell, why not offer catechism for the Pope?

But then there's Johnny Cash. Just a few years before this performance, Bob Dylan went electric at Newport, and the audience booed. Johnny was backstage. Johnny was perplexed. "Why won't they just let him play his music?" he asked.

Johnny knew that that was the thing: you have to play your music.

Go West

Chico Marx

Girl, You'll Be A Woman Soon

Neil Diamond

My kids know this as the song Dad sings as he does dishes.

One

U2

Did I disappoint you?
Or leave a bad taste in your mouth?
You act like you never had love
And you want me to go without.

One life. You got to do what you should.

Communication Breakdown

Led Zeppelin

Led Zeppelin wanted me in junior high school. I wasn't in the mood for long-haired narcissists who refused to give up radio time to any song under nine minutes. I passed in favor of anything in a skinny tie.

In nineteen eighty three, I taped "Physical Graffiti" and drove around a lot, wearing out that cassette, all by myself, in my time. I was ready.

To this day, though, I will not listen to "Stairway to Heaven." I hope I never lose another minute of my life to that bloated waste of time.

All My Love

Cliff Richard

All my love
Came to nothing at all, my love
When I woke up to find
You were no longer mine
All my love
Thrown away after all this time
Now there's no place for me in the future, you see
I don't understand you
I've done all I can do
Tell me how could I give you more
More than
All my love

Instant Karma

John Lennon

Lolita

Lolita

I think it was your cherry pies.

Or maybe it was so much genius in one film. Nabokov, Kubrick, Winters, Sellers, oh yes Lyon, and uh, yeah . . . James Mason.

You know, in real life, James Mason was kind to cats. But to me, he is ever the cad. "What is it to me," the captain said, "that he has a withered arm?"

Waa laa.

30 Foot Bride of Candy Rock

30 Foot Bride of Candy Rock

Sixteen Going On Seventeen

The Sound of Music

You wait, little girl, on an empty stage
For fate to turn the light on
Your life, little girl, is an empty page
That men will want to write on.

There was a little girl in Jason's kindergarten class who would point and call me "Rolfe."

"You need someone older and wiser," I'd say.

Waterloo Sunset

The Kinks

You Can't Put Your Arm Around A Memory

Johnny Thunders

Mudhoney

Russ Meyer

Suspicious Minds

Elvis Presley

Avah puts the drop on the King.

Who's Your Daddy?

Benny Benassi

Toi Jamais

Catherine Deneuve

Sapphic Erotica

Sapphic Erotica

Strokin'

Clarence Carter

Eden tells us she spent her high school years strokin'. I know she didn't stop until she was sassified.

Silver Lining

Rilo Kiley

I'm told that if you listen to Rilo Kiley anywhere in the world, somewhere Anna Smash will be dancing in her underwear.

Throw Your Arms Around Me

Neil Finn

. . . kiss you in four places . . .

That's right, he had me before a chorus.

Where Did You Go To, My Lovely?

Peter Sarstedt

Molly sends this one along. Gee, you'd think she could look inside your head, yes she do.

Effect and Cause

The White Stripes

I got somebody playing buzzsaw white noise in my mind.

Well you keep blamin' me for what you did
And that ain't all
The way you clean up a wreck
Is enough to get one pause
You seem to forget
Just how this song started
I'm reactin' to you because you left me broken-hearted
See, you just can't take the effect
And make it the cause

Die. Mommie, Die!

Charles Busch

Rocket Man

William Shatner

My "Rocket Man," as interpreted by William Shatner.

Thanks to Bridget. With a bonus track for Jason.

Total Eclipse of the Heart

Kiki and Herb

Don't turn your back on me
Don't turn your back on Kiki
Kiki loves you
Kiki needs you
Kiki would die for you

Thank you ladies and gentlemen.

Wishful Thinking

The Ditty Bops

Shores of California

Dresden Dolls

Why all these conflicting specifications?
Maybe to prevent overpopulation.
All I know is that all around the nation.
The girls are crying and the boys are masturbating.

And that's the way it is in Minnesota,
And that's the way it is in Oklahoma,
That's the way Aristophanes and Homer
Wrote the Iliad and Lysistrata.

That fickle little bitch, romance.

Can't we all just get along? Pass the tissues.